4.31 Europe: a.d. 1701 to 1800  (Page 18/28)

Perhaps the most fundamental difference between social patterns of Britain and the continent was the greater prestige and autonomy which merchants and financiers enjoyed in the former. The interpenetration of the landed nobility and the merchant class in England resulted in availability of large amounts of capital and a remarkable economic growth. Toleration of religious nonconformity also helped. The liberties of Englishmen, expressed in chronic effervescence of parliamentary (and extraneous) debate, confirmed by economic and imperial success, contrasted the deferential obedience demanded by European monarchs. (Ref. 213 )

One must not assume, however, that there were no troubles. England created two societies, remote from each other. The first was the society made up of modest country gentlemen and the other was the urban conglomerate, with plenty of animal spirits and not much civilization. (Ref. 33 ) With somewhere between 750,000 and 860,000 inhabitants London was the largest city in Europe

On the government level piracy was still tolerated and the slave trade by English ships still flourished. And even as now, the lawmakers of England had been so eager to protect the individual from the state that many worried that they were failing to protect society from the individual. The machinery of enforcement broke down before the spread and organization of crime. As in France, a stock exchange in London was established at the turn of the century and again, as in France, there was a market crash in 1720, as the South Sea Company went into bankruptcy.

In some degree history does repeat itself. Just as today labor fears the increase in automation, so in the 18th century the development of machines led to serious labor reactions. We have mentioned John Kay's invention of the "flying shuttle" which doubled the weaving output and increased quality, but now we must add that angry mobs broke up his house and he died in poverty, in France. Similarly, James Hargreaves of the spinning jenny fame, had his house sacked, his first machine burned and he also had to flee. (Ref. 213 ) Still another phenomenon appeared that remains with us today - bitter arguments over the mounting national debt. The entire economic system depended on the "credit-worthiness" of the state and it could continue to exist only if Parliament created new sources of revenue earmarked for regular payment of the interest on the debt. As a result certain people, land-owners particularly, had high taxes levied, while others, money lenders, renters, and business men, whose incomes were not taxed, gained whenever the state borrowed more money and the interest rate was raised. Braudel (Ref. 292 ) says that this latter group actually promoted the 1739 war with Spain.